“Varsity” Project 2

Growing up, every young teenager experiences their share of hardships and difficulties with bullies and being bullied. A kid’s experience of bullying can starts in early as middle school and continued throughout junior high and high school. It is a never-ending, earth-shattering cycle on repeat that most cannot change. As a teacher, I decided that would not be tolerated. Although I know my job can only go so far because I can only control what the kids do outside of my classroom, online, or at home. Granted, during those 45 minutes, I was going to do my best to reinforce a safe, welcoming, and loving environment, trying to make an impact on each of their lives. For ten plus years, I had never heard complaints, issues, or concerns about my classroom being a negative place. That all changed on October 7th, Mr. Smith approached me that morning to inform me one of the students had been being bullied in my classroom. I was in awe hearing this news about my sports athletics class and had no idea how it was happening right before my eyes. After that, I immediately went to Asher Gray, the young talented football player who was being bullied. He began explaining and he said classmates often created pranks targeting him. Continuing he said the pranks didn’t start out as bullying; name-calling started early on in September for that reason he thought they would stop the reason behind not telling me. Kids don’t want to be seen as “tattle-tails,” I understood that, although at that moment I was furious with myself, my classroom was centered on being a positive place and it was not anymore and has not been, at least for Asher. I couldn’t help but wonder were other kids feeling this way too? Once Asher’s parents arrived we sat down in the yellow chairs placed in Mr. Smiths’ office and began elaborating on the names students were calling Asher. Such as four eyes, thunderbox, nerd, mute were just some of the many names Asher endured while in my class and more importantly at all. After continuously reinforming Mr. and Mrs. Gray I would put an end to this, the parents left, and the second the glass down shut, tears rolled down my face. I felt ashamed and like a letdown, never in my life did I want my classroom to be an unhappy place for students, somethings are beyond my control, although not my classroom. I brought the boys in who were namecalling and bullying and I could see in their eyes they knew it was not for anything good; it most definitely was not. I gave the boys the opportunity to attempt to their mistakes although silence was all I heard. I then elaborated on the problem and explained why it was wrong and what would happen if it continued. I did not yell, I did not raise my hands, I simply explained, and for that reason, the boys respected me and promised to honor their apology towards Asher Gray and would not do it ever again. To this day, it has never happened again and the boys are now best friends. Respect from young boys was hard to get although I was the “nice” teacher who always had a smile on her face and always had a fun activity planned for the day and students knew that I did not tolerate bullying and for that they respected me. They did not want to lose the “fun” teacher. To this day, two years later, I still think about these boys and how much they grew as students although I will never forget the guilt and shame I had as a teacher for not recognizing it.

“Varsity” was the short story I chose to use because of its story. A story I could understand and relate to in a way. Not in every aspect of course but in a way. I understood what was happening throughout the story and the story being portrayed. In some of the poems or stories that were an option, I could not understand. Not a single line. They had deeper meanings behind them and I am slow at finding those or get the wrong message. “Varsity” was clear to me and I knew I would be able to represent the story from a different perspective rather than my own and my writing ability in a good manner while accomplishing the project guidelines. The hardest challenge I faced while doing this project was attempting to put myself in the shoes of “Varsity.” I have never written from the point of view of a character in a story so it was entirely different. Although it forced me to think outside the box and just begin writing. Once I started, I realized it was fairly easy by simply just writing out different key elements of the story that I wanted to tell from the teacher’s perspective. I took each small section and just rewrote that from another perspective and elaborated each sentence centered on feelings, emotions, and the environment around the teacher and how she felt.